AM: Wildlife and Fieldwork Ethics and Welfare

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Plenary presenter: Dr. Mucha Mkono (University of Queensland, Australia)

Title: Navigating the North-South geopolitics of conservation and animal-based recreation: some personal reflections

In this talk I will consider the question of why the geopolitics of trophy hunting are so fraught. In particular, I will break down the various tensions and domains that make the trophy hunting debate so complex: (i) Agency: Who has the say? Who is the ‘local’? (ii) Power: Who has the power to make decisions that matter? How has this become a political football? (iii) Morality/ethicality: Who is ‘right’? Who is ‘wrong’? and (iv) Academy/research institutions: What constitutes ‘evidence’? What role do conflicts of interest play in the associated knowledge production? Most importantly, how can all the different actors find common ground to achieve their common interest, that is, conservation of megafauna?

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Presenter: Pete Goddard, Wild Animal Welfare Committee​

Title: Animal behaviour and welfare research using wild species - who decides what is acceptable?

ASAB guidelines for the treatment of animals in behavioural research and teaching, published in 2021, represent a hugely valuable resource, including when wild animals are the subject.  Many scientific studies will, in Europe at least, fall under EU Directive 210/63/EU.  This requires work to be evaluated in advance by an ethical review body (ERB).  Such bodies examine the cost:benefit balance, but costs and benefits usually have different currencies so expert judgement is needed.  Many will base this judgement on the Five Welfare Domains model.  Not all “costs” are initially apparent.  For studies with wild animals by individuals or organisations without an established ERB and where work is particularly likely to be conducted in-situ, it is not clear whether or how a cost:benefit appraisal is undertaken, nor to what standard.  ASAB guidelines indicate that there is no universal “off-the-shelf” framework to facilitate this, nor is there an independent arbiter (or arbitration system) who can advise on what is or isn’t acceptable in terms of animal impact versus knowledge to be gained.  Yet a recognised framework would remove the risk of self-certification to a lower standard and potential rejection of a scientific paper by a journal on welfare grounds despite any welfare costs being already incurred.  Studies designed explicitly to evaluate welfare impacts (e.g. of a habitat modification) need also to be subject to a cost:benefit evaluation in advance – a form of meta-analysis -, rather than assuming any “welfare” study is naturally acceptable.  This paper argues for the coalescence of existing welfare evaluation approaches to allow for rigorous standardisation of work involving wild animal species, regardless of the context.

Ethics statement. This paper debates the pre-emptive evaluation of studies involving the use of wild animals, including where welfare itself is the subject under investigation.  As such, no direct work using animals was undertaken.

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Presenter: Mr. Vassili Papastavrou and Dr. Conor Ryan, International Fund for Animal Welfare

Title: Ethical standards for research on marine mammals

Research on marine mammals raises a number of important ethical issues. The continuation of whaling by Iceland despite the international moratorium provided opportunities for scientists to obtain samples resulting in more than 35 peer-reviewed papers. In 2021 we published an analysis of the ethical and legal issues for those scientists collaborating with Icelandic whalers. There appeared to be very little consideration or understanding of the legal and ethical issues associated with the killing of whales amongst the researchers, funding bodies, universities and journals. Ethical statements were rarely provided and those that were written were incomplete. Whilst research using whaling data may seem acceptable to those involved, it often becomes hard to justify once in the public domain. There is a particular danger for early career researchers who may become unwittingly involved in unethical activities. We also consider the ethical issues raised by non-lethal research on marine mammals including tagging, sampling and restraint. Examples to be included are both historical and recent. We discuss instances where study animals have died and where tags were mistaken for harpoons. For all these types of study, ethical frameworks need to be developed which are analogous to those used in international biomedical research. In particular (as in medical research), offshoring of research to jurisdictions with weaker regulatory frameworks should be prohibited.

Ethics statement. This is a broad review and discussion of published information.

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Presenter: Miriam A. Zemanova, University of Fribourg & Animal free Research

Title: Minimizing the animal welfare impact of wildlife genetic sampling through non-invasive methods

Genetic and genomic analyses have become indispensable tools in wildlife research. DNA samples have been traditionally obtained from blood or tissues, i.e., through invasive or lethal methods. However, such approaches often have a detrimental impact on animal welfare and therefore raise important ethical issues. A wide range of both vertebrate and invertebrate animals are now recognized as sentient beings whose interests need to be taken into consideration when conducting research. Consequently, researchers are responsible for using methods that are least invasive or do not even require any potentially stressful interaction with the animal. Fortunately, DNA can be collected also non-invasively, from faeces, saliva, mucous, etc. Nevertheless, the implementation rate of non-invasive genetic assessment in wildlife studies has been rather low. This might be caused by the perceived inefficiency of DNA material obtained non-invasively or poorer performance in comparison with other approaches used in wildlife research. Therefore, I evaluated the performance of non-invasive genetic assessment in comparison with other methods across different types of wildlife studies. Through a search of three scientific databases, 113 relevant studies were identified, published between the years 1997 and 2020. Overall, the majority of the studies (94%) reported equivalent or superior performance of non-invasive genetic assessment when compared with either invasive genetic sampling or another research method. In conclusion, non-invasive genetic assessment is a highly effective research approach that is well-suited to address the increasing demand for efficient and ethical research that has minimal impact on animal welfare. Ethics statement. No animals were used in this study and no ethical approval was required.

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PM: Farm Animal Ethics and Welfare

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Plenary speaker: Professor María José Hötzel (Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil)

Title: Reporting on the ethics of research on farm animals: current challenges

Farm animal welfare studies involve two types of subjects: animals reared in many different housing and production systems (either in laboratories or in commercial conditions), and humans involved directly or indirectly in the use of these animals. The ethical standards of research are expressed in the way the animals are reared, the choice of research procedures, the analysis of results, and the reporting of the methodology and the data. Poor ethical standards of research may have repercussions on the reproducibility of results, public support for research involving animals and humans, and even the trust in scientists and in science. To ensure high ethical standards, research involving humans and animals is often reviewed by third parties: before the research starts, by institutional boards, and during the publication process, by editors and reviewers. The quality of these assessments and of the guidelines followed by these parties can be influenced by the views and the formal training of researchers and local and national committees or regulatory agencies on the issue. Problems may arise when researchers have no access to ethics committees, or journals fail to guide or enforce ethical standards. There is a need for a shift in culture, where the ethical standards of research are considered a key component of “research quality”.

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Presenter: Tamara Tadich, Universidad Austral de Chile

Other Authors: Javiera Calderón-Amor, Daniela Luna

Title: Compliance of farm animal behaviour and welfare studies with the ARRIVE essential 10

The ARRIVE guidelines (Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments) aim to ensure that studies involving non-human animals report enough details that enable to evaluate its methodological rigour and reproducibility. The guideline includes ten essential items considered the basic minimum that must be included in manuscripts describing animal research. The aim of this study was to assess compliance with the ARRIVE essential 10 in farm animal behaviour and welfare studies published in 2021. For this, all farm animal studies published in three WoS journals that have as main scope animal welfare and behaviour were assessed. Compliance with the essential 10 and inclusion of an ethical statement and certification number were verified. Each item of the essential 10 was assigned a score of 1 when information was included. A total of 324 articles were published between the three journals during 2021, from which 133 included farm animals. An ethical statement was not included in 20 articles (15%) and 45 (33.8%) did not have a protocol approval number. From the essential 10 none complied with all criteria, with total score ranging from 2.33 to 9.17 (average= 5.75). Although 97% provided details about number of animals per group and total animals, 96,2% did not inform how sample size was estimated. Animal behaviour and welfare studies that do not include invasive procedures can also cause distress and should be reviewed by an animal care and use committee. Furthermore, the lack of information on how sample sizes were calculated is also a welfare concern since the reduction of animal use cannot be assured. Authors should be encouraged to follow and report the use of ARRIVE guidelines and reviewers should verify that they are correctly applied.

Ethics: N/A

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Presenter: Katarína Bučková, Queen's University Belfast

Other Authors: Ágnes Moravcsíková, Radka Šárová, and Marek Špinka

Title: Indication of social buffering in disbudded calves

Most dairy calves are housed individually and undergo disbudding in early ontogeny. The most common method of disbudding is preventing a horn bud growth through tissue cauterization producing severe pain. However, pain relief medication is administered to calves only in a small percentage of farms. Therefore, other approaches how to improve welfare of disbudded calves should also be considered. One promising approach is taking advantage of the effect of social buffering, i.e., to decrease negative effects of disbudding by housing calves with familiar conspecifics. We investigated the effect of pair versus individual housing on calves’ reaction to disbudding. Female calves were reared either in pairs (n=24 pairs, 12 focal animals) or individually (n=10 calves), and disbudded with a local anaesthetic at 58.84 ± 2.01 days of age. Calf behaviour in home pens was recorded for 24 h pre- and post-disbudding. Feeding of hay, ruminating, resting, exploration, play, self-grooming, and pain-related behaviours were quantified during eight 20 min intervals during the 24 h periods pre- and post-disbudding. The differences between individually housed (INDI) and PAIR calves were tested by general linear models. We found that PAIR calves fed hay more often than INDI calves (F1,18=12.27, P=0.003) which may be an indication of their improved ability to recover from disbudding. There were not any other significant differences. Our results suggest that housing calves with familiar conspecifics after disbudding may improve their welfare, which is particularly relevant to those farms where only minimum ethical requirements for disbudding are fulfilled.

Ethics: This research was carried out in accordance with the ethical policy of the International Society of Applied Ethology. It was approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of the Institute of Animal Science Prague where it was carried out. Disbudding is a routine farm practice and it was done with a local anesthetic and by a trained veterinarian. There were not any other invasive procedures done.

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Presenter: Lauri Torgerson-White, Farm Sanctuary

Other Authors: Sasha Prasad-Shreckengast and Lori Gruen

Title: Understanding Farmed Animals as Agents: Ethical Animal Research

The vast majority of ethological research with farmed animals is performed either in a laboratory or in a commercial setting where animal agency and opportunities to express their behavioral repertoire and social, emotional, and cognitive capacities are restricted. It thus follows that the results and conclusions of those studies may be limited by the constraints placed upon each individual animal. Furthermore, when animals are forced to participate in research, the results may be confounded by fear and stress. Indeed, research in farmed animal species demonstrates that conditions which induce stress can lead to pessimism, and pessimism can impact cognition and learning. Farm Sanctuary has launched a sanctuary-based research program guided by ethical research guidelines which align with the principles of the Belmont Report (autonomy, nonmaleficence, beneficence, and justice). The guidelines require that research be intentionally structured with a goal of being noninvasive, that research methods include a mechanism designed to offer the choice to participate in the research, and that specific measures be taken to increase the likelihood that the experience is positive for all participants. This paper will explore the implications of a lack of informed consent and restrictive living conditions in human-focused research; explore how similar forced participation and restrictive living conditions may have impacted the current understanding of farmed animal cognition, emotions, and welfare; outline the research program’s ethics guidelines; and explore their applicability in a case study that explores emotions and learning in chickens.

Ethics: All research performed at Farm Sanctuary is non-invasive, the participants are given the choice to participate, and the research is designed to provide conditions conducive to positive affect. Farm Sanctuary does not have a formal IACUC but did recently form a research advisory committee that is tasked with ensuring that all research is performed in alignment with our recently created research ethics guidelines (which will be the topic of this presentation).

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